Will Miller talks to Ars about the franchise's jump from history to "future history."

For all the ahistorical directions you can take simulation games in, Civilization titles have always been grounded in the world of human history. That's a large part of what makes the recent announcement of Civilization: Beyond Earth such a departure for the series. By throwing the setting to faraway planets hundreds of years in the future, the team at Firaxis is free to take the game in a direction that's not as tied down to conventional, real-world situations. "I like the idea of a bunch of trash cans at Firaxis filled with historical text books," emcee Jeff Cannata joked during the game's unveiling at PAX East. "'We don't need these anymore!'"

Talking with Ars, Beyond Earth Co-lead Designer Will Miller said that joke wasn't completely accurate. For starters, the beginning point of the game's projected future history is still "where we are right now, our geopolitical spectrum in the real world." When the game's development began, Miller said he and co-designer David McDonough wrote out exactly how they see the world going from its current state to the "Great Mistake" that alters the course of human events about 25 years in the future. Miller wouldn't go into specifics on what form that cataclysm will take (and it won't be spelled out in the game itself), but he did say, "We hint that it was probably a nuclear exchange in the Asian subcontinent somewhere."

That might seem like a pessimistic view of the near-future for human history, but Miller argued that the longer view of the 200 or so years leading from the present to the start of Beyond Earth's gameplay is actually kind of cheery in its own way. "We didn't annihilate ourselves," he pointed out. "We had a minor nuclear confrontation, the effects of global warming really took hold, and there was a point at which the threshold was reached and it was accelerated—you saw in the trailer that the pyramids were flooded and all that stuff.

"But the story that comes before the start of the game is one of optimism. It's a positive story—we had this thing happen to us, but we came back. So these nations that you get to select as a sponsor at the beginning of the game, they all negotiated this terrible point in our history in their own unique way, and you get to play as the best and brightest of those nations. It's not apocalypse, but almost apocalypse."

Whether or not this is a realistic view of the future course of humanity, Miller seems to enjoy catastrophe as a way to move history (or fictional future history) forward. "I like to think that cooler heads will prevail [in the real world], but I think great things in human history happen when there are catalysts," he said. "We got to the moon because of our race with the Russians and the Cold War, all of the technology invented during World War I and World War II. I'm of course not advocating that we go to war to get to space, but it takes conflict to really drive these things. The story of humanity is a story of conflict and resolution, and if you play a game of Civilization that's exactly what it is—Gandhi nuked me, but we made peace at the end! It's the same with this product."

Historical grounding also comes into play in some of the game's artistic design. Miller talked about NASA and Russian space agency designs as an inspiration for the aesthetic choices in the early space-bound units at the beginning of the game. For the development team, though, creating a new future history doesn't mean forgoing research as much as changing the research material.

"There's still a research component," Miller said. "Whether you're coming up with the look and feel or how the game plays or whatever, we're just drawing from different material. Instead of the history books we're looking to the science fiction authors or films or comic books, things like that. ... We read the greats: Asimov, Heinlein, Orson Scott Card. Dan Simmons is a big influence, the Hyperion Cantos, we kind of lifted the idea of 'The Great Mistake' from that—that's an homage to him. He does a very good job of portraying space as this very strange place, a place that is so strange we can't even comprehend it. Even if we were shown it, we still can't really grasp it—it's so weird, so big, so old."

That's not the only homage to existing science fiction players will find in the game either. "One of the ways to win the game is called Contact, which you'll probably recognize from the [Carl Sagan] book or the movie of the same name," Miller said. "You research a signal that you find either by exploring alien ruins you find on the planet or receive from outer space via radio telescope or finding it in the mantissa of a transcendental number, and you build this giant thing and then you contact the aliens. So I think science fiction fans are going to find a lot of these little and more overt nods to their favorites. This is really a love letter to the genre."

The connections to common sci-fi themes extend to the gameplay, which is centered on three different "affinity" paths players can take toward story-based victories that are more than just "make this number bigger than everybody else's," as Miller put it. "The Harmony [affinity] victory is an homage to Alpha Centauri. You discover the planet is sentient, like Solaris or something. Then you build these machines that interface with it, and you win the game by awakening interfacing with the planet. But to do that, you have to build these big structures and protect them and turn them on and devote resources that you would otherwise be devoting to your cities. There's a give and take there; you're vulnerable when you decide to shoot for those victories."

"The Purity and Supremacy [affinity] victories are sort of two ends of the same coin," he continued. "In the game, about halfway through... you re-establish contact from Earth. You kind of left it in a nebulous space; you're not really sure what happened. About that time, you've also researched the technology to build a warp gate. So for the Purity player, you build a warp gate and bring settlers from Earth to the new world, and you have to protect them, settle a certain number of them, find space for them. There's a territorial problem you have to work out, which obviously causes conflict. That's one of your real-life conflicts today—that's the Israeli/Palestinian conflict right there.

"The flipside of that is what we call the Emancipation victory. That's the Supremacy victory where you build the warp gate to send troops through it to conquer Earth. So you have to sacrifice a huge chunk of your army to feed the warp gate while you're protecting yourself and protecting it."

While sharing space and interacting with semi-intelligent alien life is an important part of Beyond Earth, Miller stressed that going to the stars isn't simply an excuse to meet and fight strange new beings. The focus is still on humanity's story, even as the idea of what humanity actually is may change in drastic ways throughout the game.

"If you took a Homo sapien from the Stone Age and showed them us, they would think we were weird, but we still look the same," Miller said. "I think what we're suggesting in this game is a rapid acceleration of morphological change as well. We really do mean you will look different. You'll be recognizable I think as human, but when you invest in these different affinities, your leader starts to change, other leaders around you are changing, your cities change.

"I think that Civilization tells a very universal story. People are different and conflict arises from that and it's resolved—this rolling ocean of conflict and resolution. I think the fundamental story of people finding homes somewhere and eking out an existence, pushing back the darkness, is a story that's the same. You start at the Stone Age to the Modern Age, you're pushing back the darkness. In this game it's the same as well. That's sort of what we mean when we say the DNA of Civilization is in this game as well...

"Civilization is the story of humanity. Beyond Earth is the story of humanity in the future. So we didn't want you to play as aliens, we wanted to you to play as humans. The focus is on the interaction of humanity with this new world and with each other."

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

Looks interesting. Can i assume this is for just the PC? or will this make it to the XBOX 1 and PS4?

PC, Mac and Linux have been announced. No word either way on consoles yet.

Probably not a bad thing, either. Civilization: Revolution was the last console version to be released (I Think?) and it came across as a watered down predecessor to #V. I believe Firaxis recognized this as well and stated they will not make games for console anymore.

Looks interesting. Can i assume this is for just the PC? or will this make it to the XBOX 1 and PS4?

PC, Mac and Linux have been announced. No word either way on consoles yet.

Probably not a bad thing, either. Civilization: Revolution was the last console version to be released (I Think?) and it came across as a watered down predecessor to #V. I believe Firaxis recognized this as well and stated they will not make games for console anymore.

The whole point of revolution was to be watered down. They wanted it to play faster, quicker and be easier to play on consoles.

They even already made a game for consoles since then, X-com. Although I still doubt we'll see another Civ on consoles for at least a little while.

Looks interesting. Can i assume this is for just the PC? or will this make it to the XBOX 1 and PS4?

PC, Mac and Linux have been announced. No word either way on consoles yet.

Probably not a bad thing, either. Civilization: Revolution was the last console version to be released (I Think?) and it came across as a watered down predecessor to #V. I believe Firaxis recognized this as well and stated they will not make games for console anymore.

We can dream. A console version can't be that hard--it just needs a good control scheme. It's not like trying to play a MOBA, where you need the accuracy of the mouse. If I could get Civ:BE on Xbox One, I would preorder today.

Looks interesting. Can i assume this is for just the PC? or will this make it to the XBOX 1 and PS4?

PC, Mac and Linux have been announced. No word either way on consoles yet.

Probably not a bad thing, either. Civilization: Revolution was the last console version to be released (I Think?) and it came across as a watered down predecessor to #V. I believe Firaxis recognized this as well and stated they will not make games for console anymore.

I don't understand why, when the recent consoles have processing architectures so similar to those of PCs, they wouldn't just port the game instead of making a new one. For someone like me that doesn't have enough money to throw down on building a badass gaming box, a console release would be perfect.

I normally don't pre-order games. It always seems risky to spend my hard-earned cash on a game that could be crap. For once, I don't care. I NEED this game as soon as possible.

Be careful. It took Civ 5 about 3 months after launch to become playable in single player...

I disagree. There were a few issues, definitely, and some things like religion should have been in the initial release, but I still played the game and enjoyed it less then a month after launch. It wasn't perfect, but it still did a good job of filling that civ shaped hole in my spare time.

I'm going to need to explain to my wife why I'm saving all my vacation days. And then why we are taking a "staycation". And then why our "staycation" involves me being locked in my office and not talking to her.

I don't understand why, when the recent consoles have processing architectures so similar to those of PCs, they wouldn't just port the game instead of making a new one. For someone like me that doesn't have enough money to throw down on building a badass gaming box, a console release would be perfect.

With all that said, DO WANT.

Have you ever tried to play an in-depth strategy game like Civ on a console? Like Civilization on the SNES or Civ II on the PS1? The control scheme is pretty weak / rough.

You can do a deep strategy game on a console but it requires a very different GUI. For example, look at Romance of the Three Kingdoms or other KOEI games from the 90s on the 8/16 bit consoles.

Civ: Rev on the 360/PS3 was their attempt, and it wasn't terrible - but it felt like Civ ultra-light to us Civ veterans.

I don't understand why, when the recent consoles have processing architectures so similar to those of PCs, they wouldn't just port the game instead of making a new one. For someone like me that doesn't have enough money to throw down on building a badass gaming box, a console release would be perfect.

With all that said, DO WANT.

Have you ever tried to play an in-depth strategy game like Civ on a console? Like Civilization on the SNES or Civ II on the PS1? The control scheme is pretty weak / rough.

You can do a deep strategy game on a console but it requires a very different GUI. For example, look at Romance of the Three Kingdoms or other KOEI games from the 90s on the 8/16 bit consoles.

Civ: Rev on the 360/PS3 was their attempt, and it wasn't terrible - but it felt like Civ ultra-light to us Civ veterans.

The UI might have to be different, but I don't think it's outside the realm of something that could be considered reasonable. I've only really played V, and I can imagine that if the UI were the same with just a remapped control scheme, the only thing that would kind of suck is that I'd have to use an analog stick to move a cursor instead of a mouse, and even that I don't think would be a dealbreaker for me. I don't think Civ:Rev is really a fair example either, since it was designed for the express purpose of being a quicker, less complex version of Civilization.

I find it amusing how there's fog of war when the humans have managed interstellar travel.

You laugh, but fog of war is an important game mechanic that's really useful at generating a sense of discovery and lack of control. It's supposed to be a foreign and dangerous world that you slowly learn to conquer.

Consider it from a lore perspective:

The interstellar ships were launched in a hurry, people need to get off the planet and you cant wait for future techs to make interstellar travel any safer or more efficient than it already is. Perhaps, to survive re-entry and optimize the amount of people you can bring, there just isn't the space to bring detachable modules (satellites). Worse, when you land you find the environment inhospitable and you can either focus your few resources on building a safer living environment, or getting your industry off the ground in order to manufacture a satellite launch system.

I find it amusing how there's fog of war when the humans have managed interstellar travel.

You laugh, but fog of war is an important game mechanic that's really useful at generating a sense of discovery and lack of control. It's supposed to be a foreign and dangerous world that you slowly learn to conquer.

Consider it from a lore perspective:

The interstellar ships were launched in a hurry, people need to get off the planet and you cant wait for future techs to make interstellar travel any safer or more efficient than it already is. Perhaps, to survive re-entry and optimize the amount of people you can bring, there just isn't the space to bring detachable modules (satellites). Worse, when you land you find the environment inhospitable and you can either focus your few resources on building a safer living environment, or getting your industry off the ground in order to manufacture a satellite launch system.

And they couldn't pack a few drones for reconnaissance? Or some binoculars?

I understand the need for Fog of War but the fact that this takes place in the far future makes it seem odd that these people can only see as far as their Stone Age ancestors could when the world was new.

I find it amusing how there's fog of war when the humans have managed interstellar travel.

You laugh, but fog of war is an important game mechanic that's really useful at generating a sense of discovery and lack of control. It's supposed to be a foreign and dangerous world that you slowly learn to conquer.

Consider it from a lore perspective:

The interstellar ships were launched in a hurry, people need to get off the planet and you cant wait for future techs to make interstellar travel any safer or more efficient than it already is. Perhaps, to survive re-entry and optimize the amount of people you can bring, there just isn't the space to bring detachable modules (satellites). Worse, when you land you find the environment inhospitable and you can either focus your few resources on building a safer living environment, or getting your industry off the ground in order to manufacture a satellite launch system.

I think it's a total waste of time to try and rationalize it. There's fog-of-war because it's an important game play element. If you want to create some elaborate back story to explain it, then go ahead. But for the rest of us, just consider it willing suspension of disbelieve.

I find it amusing how there's fog of war when the humans have managed interstellar travel.

You laugh, but fog of war is an important game mechanic that's really useful at generating a sense of discovery and lack of control. It's supposed to be a foreign and dangerous world that you slowly learn to conquer.

Consider it from a lore perspective:

The interstellar ships were launched in a hurry, people need to get off the planet and you cant wait for future techs to make interstellar travel any safer or more efficient than it already is. Perhaps, to survive re-entry and optimize the amount of people you can bring, there just isn't the space to bring detachable modules (satellites). Worse, when you land you find the environment inhospitable and you can either focus your few resources on building a safer living environment, or getting your industry off the ground in order to manufacture a satellite launch system.

And they couldn't pack a few drones for reconnaissance? Or some binoculars?

I understand the need for Fog of War but the fact that this takes place in the far future makes it seem odd that these people can only see as far as their Stone Age ancestors could when the world was new.

The minerals in the planet's stratosphere reverse the polarity of any neutrons that flow to or from the surface. Maybe if we modify the deflector dish to emit a burst of photonic radiation...

I find it amusing how there's fog of war when the humans have managed interstellar travel.

Seems reasonable. We've managed global communication, and I don't even know all the people on my block.

This, and what's more: we are now measuring atmospheric composition of some extrasolar planets while at the same time we don't know the properties and potentials of the very soil we walk upon… I guess this applies to America as well as to Europe.

Looks interesting. Can i assume this is for just the PC? or will this make it to the XBOX 1 and PS4?

PC, Mac and Linux have been announced. No word either way on consoles yet.

Probably not a bad thing, either. Civilization: Revolution was the last console version to be released (I Think?) and it came across as a watered down predecessor to #V. I believe Firaxis recognized this as well and stated they will not make games for console anymore.

I don't understand why, when the recent consoles have processing architectures so similar to those of PCs, they wouldn't just port the game instead of making a new one. For someone like me that doesn't have enough money to throw down on building a badass gaming box, a console release would be perfect.

With all that said, DO WANT.

I think the issue is more about the UI than the processing power. Look at a PS4 or xBox one. You've got a thumbstick or directional pad and a handful of buttons to replace a mouse and a keyboard. A mouse or your other favorite pointing device on a computer works soo much better than a thumb stick working a cursor and a keyboard has a ton more buttons.

Trying to design a UI that works with the limited control set almost always involves a lot of work and simplifying the game mechanics to some extent. Who wants a 8 hour civ game to last 10 or 12 hours instead because it's so slow to do things because of a poor UI. The PS4 at least seems to support keyboard and mice but you still have to support just the default controller or make it very clear that they are required to play the game.